Prince Harry has arrived home from his 20-week frontline tour of duty in Afghanistan.
The 28-year-old, who returned to England on a regular personnel flight, said it was great to be back and revealed that he was longing to see his loved ones and congratulate Prince William and Catherine on their baby news in person.
Admitting he had “let myself and my family down” with his drunken antics in Las Vegas just weeks before his deployment, Harry described the tour as a “hell of an experience” and said he enjoyed being plain old “Captain Wales” rather than a royal heir.
“We are supporting the Afghan people, supporting the Afghan army. The way that things are going are fantastic – I suppose that sounds a typical MoD/Army answer, but it’s true,” he told The Sun.
Prince Harry arrives with his unit, 662 Squadron, 3 Regiment Army Air Corps/
Harry has served as an Apache Helicopter Pilot/Gunner for four months.
Harry runs out of his base in Afghanistan.
Harry, wears his monocle gun sight as he sits in the front seat of his cockpit.
Blockbuster events in Australia — whether they’re music, art or food — are acting as powerful drawcards on the travelling public, writes Mike Dolan.
It was a spectacular gamble … more Wall Street than Bennelong Point. Some say $11milllion was at stake, including the reputation of Opera Australia … and it all rested on the fickle weather.
Staging a full-scale production of La Traviata on Sydney Harbour was always going to be risky. Staging it in one of wettest years in decades seemed insane. And yet, it paid off with dividends, re-invigorating Opera Australia and boosting tourism in NSW.
All this, thanks to the vision of one man, Opera Australia’s Artistic Director, Lyndon Terracini. “I had four weather apps on my phone and each one told me the sun was going to shine,” says Terracini. And even though it had rained for a month, the sun did shine on the opening night and 3000 people leapt to their feet and roared with applause.
“The next day we sold more than $200,000 tickets in a day. Sixty per cent of the people who came had never been to an opera before,” says Terracini. And 40 per cent of the audience came from interstate and overseas, proving that the arts can be a dynamic factor in getting people to travel.
Who knows what would have transpired if the rain had continued to fall. But that’s all in the past and Terracini has every right to feel vindicated. 2012-2013 has seen Opera Australia sell more tickets than in any year of its 56-year history. And thanks to La Traviata’s success, Carmen — one of the sexiest, most thrillingly incandescent operas in the repertoire – is being staged alfresco from March 22 to April 12. And it’s not just Bizet’s fiery Spanish rhythms under the inspired direction of Gale Edwards that will attract people in their thousands to Sydney’s Royal Botanical Gardens, it’s the sheer novelty of the event: the “floating stage”, an auditorium among the trees, the bars and restaurants specially built for the occasion and the spectacular harbour backdrop.
It’s a package with huge international appeal and is expected to generate millions in new tourist dollars. For Sydneysiders, it’ll be one of city’s great nights out of 2013. For more information and tickets, visit Opera Australia.
An equally exotic event takes place at the Qualia resort when The Australian Ballet showcases some of its star dancers in front of another spectacular backdrop – the Whitsundays at sunset. Now in its sixth year, Pas de Deux in Paradise returns to Queensland’s Hamilton Island on the weekend of November 23-24.
It’s a multi-dimensional weekend where guests get an unprecedented insight into the workings of a ballet company and how the magic is weaved behind the scenes and on stage. Spectators get to mingle with the dancers and the company’s artistic director, David McAllister, at a beachside cocktail party before the show, watch rehearsals and partake in a question-and-answer session. There’s also a sensational dinner at the resort’s Long Pavilion. For ballet lovers or anyone in search of romantic getaway, this is the event … perfect for an anniversary. More information at Australian Ballet-Qualia.
Art and food are also moving Australians and one not to be missed is the Noosa International Food & Wine Festival. Celebrating its 10th year, the festival will host 200 of the world’s top chefs, winemakers and food personalities from May 16-19. For southerners facing the onset of winter, it offers a warm weekend on the Sunshine Coast with fabulous food and wine at a resort town loved the world over.
The Gala Opening Concert, Edible Music, sounds intriguing. A world-first, it will see some of Australia’s and the world’s most-acclaimed chefs creating their canapes to the music the QLD Virtuosi Orchestra. And, of course, ticket holders get to eat them! When punters have had their fill of gourmet events, Noosa offers pristine beaches and beautiful coastal walking tracks. For information, visit Noosa International Food & Wine Festival 2013.
The biggest and the oldest food bash in Australian is the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival, celebrating its 20th anniversary this year from 1-17 March 2013. Each year, it showcases a dazzling array of food and wine talent that reflects what’s on offer in Victoria, the state identified with our earliest food and wine renaissance.
This year, the Chef MasterClass presents Australians Martin Boetz (Longrain), Guillaume Brahimi (Guillaume) and Matthew Evans (Huon Valley) and American Sean Brock, otherwise known as the Son of the South. But there is also an intriguing Earth MasterClass with events, such as Origin of the Hangi, The Food at the Beginning, Farm Philosophies, The Life of Vegetable and Love of the Land. As well as the celebrated Perfect Match wine event and Theatre of Ideas. Visit Melbourne Food & Wine Festival 2013.
Much smaller, but a gem of an event that celebrates regional produce and its talented producers is the second Yarra Valley food & Wine Festival from April 12-14. Along with “world-class dining events”, there’ll be tractor tours, tea parties and produce demonstrations – all in the pastoral perfection of the Yarra. For more information, visit Yarra Food & Wine Festival.
Two of the three year’s biggest art exhibitions bring 19th century Britain and France into sharp focus. At the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, is Toulouse-Lautrec: Paris & The Moulin Rouge — a celebration of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s life and works in the bars, nightclubs and back streets of the French capital. Of the 110 works, the paintings and posters stand out with their often poignant fly-on-wall portrayals of the people who filled the demi-monde of Parisian nightlife. This not-to-missed exhibition is on until April 2. Visit National Gallery of Australia.
More than 100 works — some which have never been seen outside London — of the celebrated landscape painter of J.M.W. Turner can be seen at The Art Gallery of South Australia from February 8-May 19. The exhibition, Turner from The Tate: The Making of a Master represents some of the finest work from the iconic Tate Britain gallery. Turner, who is said to have dabbled with Impressionism before the Impressionists, is known for his representation of land- and sea- scapes in which figurative form often dissolves into pure light. Visit The Art Gallery of South Australia.
And then, there’s Francis Bacon: Five Decades, an exhibition of works by the enfant terrible of post-war British art that many may find challenging. Some 50 paintings can be seen in this, the first major exhibition of his rarest works ever to be seen in Australia (at the Art Gallery of NSW, until February 24). The art of Bacon has always been controversial. Much of his work is harrowing and people are said to either love it or hate it. Visit The Art Gallery of NSW.
She gained worldwide praise for her rendition of the US national anthem at President Barack Obama’s second inauguration, but Beyoncé’s reputation has taken a battering after it was revealed she lip-synched her way through the song.
The widely anticipated performance by the 31-year-old diva was changed at the last minute and the Marine Corps band was told they would no longer have to play as she would sing to a backing track, a band spokeswoman told the New York Post.
“We don’t know why,” Master Sgt Kristin duBois, told the paper. “But that is what we were instructed to do, so that is what we did.”
Kristen said the version sung on the day had been pre-recorded at a Marine Corps studio in Washington on Sunday night.
Capt Gregory A. Wolf, a Marine Corps spokesman, said the corps had advised against a live performance as there was little time to rehearse with the singer, but said that no-one was in a position to say whether Beyoncé lip-synced the performance of not.
Gregory said it was standard procedure to record music for the event beforehand, in case bad weather made it impossible to tune instruments on the day.
Beyoncé’s publicist has not yet commented on the lip-synching accusations.
See the video of Beyoncé’s performance above and tell us what you think in the comments box below.
Her super-svelte figure made her famous but as she approaches 50, Liz Hurley has abandoned her quest for slimness - and thinks other older women should too.
Her super-svelte figure made her famous but as she approaches 50, Liz Hurley has abandoned her quest for slimness — and thinks other older women should too.
The 47-year-old model showed off her enviable physique in a series of revealing outfits in the March issue of the Russian edition of Tatler and admitted that she has always been very strict about what she eats.
As she ages, however, Liz says she is relaxing her diet because she doesn’t think skinny older women are attractive.
“I keep my eye on what I eat all the time, because now that we’re older we have to make a conscious decision if we want to stay relatively slim,” she said.
“But as you get older, it doesn’t actually look that attractive to be super skinny.”
Liz isn’t the only celebrity to advocate a curvier look as she matures. Nigella Lawson has said she will never slim down because she would “age 10 years instantly” and Kirstie Alley has bemoaned how much older she looks since she lost weight.
Liz also spoke about her relationship with fiancé Shane Warne, revealing the distance between their respective homelands was behind their delay in tying the knot.
“We’d love to [get married], and it’s top of our to-do list, but we just haven’t,” she said. “It’s logistically quite difficult, because half the family are in Australia and half the family are here [in the UK].
“We got engaged very early because we thought it was very important for the kids to know that there was serious intent behind it, and that we were really setting out to make our own family on a different level — of course Shane’s kids still have their mother, and Damian still has Arun — but us getting married is really about the children and us.”
The children of obese mothers are far more likely to develop diabetes than those with thinner mums.
An international study led by Dr Matt Sabin from the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne has found that a mother’s body mass index (BMI) can be used to predict whether a child will develop type 2 diabetes.
The researchers studied 1800 kids over a period of 20 years, recording their diets, exercise, family history, genetics and the BMI of their mother and father.
The mother’s BMI was found to be the most accurate predictor of whether the child would develop diabetes, while the father’s BMI was irrelevant.
When a high maternal BMI is combined with a high BMI in the child, the risk of diabetes in the child skyrockets.
Dr Sabin said the research could help identify children who were at high risk of the condition so doctors could intervene and possibly prevent the condition from developing.
Early intervention is all about a healthier lifestyle, something Dr Sabin coaches parents on at the obesity clinic he runs at Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital.
He says getting a child’s weight under control early could change their whole medical future, and the future of their children too.
“Once you’re an overweight adult, your body really defends your weight,” Dr Sabin told The Weekly.
“It’s the classic yo-yo cycle. They go on a diet, do it for a period of time and then when they give up their body basically sucks back all that weight and usually a bit more.
“But young children are a little bit more malleable. It may well be that interventions will be able to change their weight trajectory. And that’s really exciting because it means is that it’s not a preordained destiny for these children to become bigger than their parents.”
Harry said he sometimes had to “take a life to save a life” and compared flying deadly missions to playing video games.
The comments infuriated the Taliban and Scotland Yard is now reportedly considering upgrading Harry’s security status to protect him from extremist reprisals.
“Purely from a protection point of view, I think it was highly unadvisable for Prince Harry to draw attention to himself,” Dai Davies, former head of the Metropolitan Police’s Royal Protection Squad, told the UK’s Daily Mail.
“It may be the reality that he killed insurgents, but saying this publicly just increases the likelihood of some lunatic trying to take revenge on him.
“It does not seem to have occurred to this young man that he has responsibility not only to himself, but also those who guard him.
“If you look at other senior royals, they never discussed their deployments. Prince Andrew never did. His father never did and nor did his uncles. None of them discussed whether they did or didn’t kill while in the military.”
The Taliban have publicly criticised Harry’s comments, releasing a statement branding him a coward and vowing to try harder to kill him.
Harry flew out of Afghanistan on Monday night. He spent some time debriefing at a British base in Cyprus but is now believed to have returned to Britain.
People who take aspirin just once a week are more than twice as likely to develop age-related blindness, a new Australian study has found.
A team from Sydney’s Westmead Millennium Institute for medical research conducted a 15-year study that found that regular users of the drug are significantly more likely to suffer from macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness in older people.
The researchers, led by Professor Paul Mitchell, studied 2000 people over the age of 50 living in the Blue Mountains.
Participants had their eyes tested, and were asked about the medication they were taking, and how often they were taking it.
Nearly 10 per cent of those taking aspirin at least once a week developed the condition, compared to 3.7 per cent of non-aspirin users.
“People who are using aspirin on a regular basis, at least once a week, but most were actually taking it daily, had about a two-and-a-half-times increased likelihood of developing macular degeneration over time,” Mitchell said.
The results are consistent with US and European studies released last year.
But despite the findings, Mitchell says people shouldn’t stop taking their aspirin without consulting their doctor.
He says more research would need to be done before clinical use of the drug was revised.
Aspirin is used to reduce the risk of strokes and some heart conditions.
The study is published in the current issue of JAMA Internal Medicine.
So it seems like everybody and their dog shuts down over the Christmas period including both of my gyms, one closed for two weeks the other on reduced hours making it impossible to make it there after work.
I was a little bit nervous about where to start but when I spoke to Pete he seemed confident that I knew enough to keep up my training on my own for a couple of weeks.
What I absolutely didn’t want to happen was for me to lose progress. I still remember all too well how hard it was at the beginning… my legs wobbling with every squat or lunge.
I decided while I was training on my own I’d make a point to focus on my cardio training since the threat of “conditioning” was still looming in my subconscious. I have this amazing piece of gym equipment from the 1980s that I inherited from my aunt when she upgraded to a treadmill. It’s called a NordicTrak and is basically a cross-country ski machine with wooden skis that you strap your feet into and a pulley system for your arms. It combines resistance and cardio and when I say it make you sweat buckets I’m not exaggerating. I hopped on that every other day for either 30 min or an hour.
I combined that with my old stair training and was happy to see that it still made my legs burn, especially when I just went from running up the stairs to adding 10kgs of free weights. One thing I realized before long was that I’ve completely outgrown all the weights in my little home gym. My 8kg kettle bell that had been collecting dust since I bought it because it was too heavy feels like it barely does a thing now. Who would have thought?
The weeks sped by and I managed to keep to my healthy eating plan despite the holiday temptations. I indulged with a glass of champagne on Christmas Eve and 2 for my Christmas Day lunch. New Years and Boxing Day I volunteered as designated driver. All in all I’d say it was a success. I didn’t lose any weight but for the first time in my adult life I made it through the holidays without putting on an ounce.
On the right track
Just in case I had any doubts about whether to stick with it, it seems like CrossFit is truly taking Hollywood by storm. Miss USA has become a CrossFit addict along with Disney beauty Venessa Hudgens and singer Kelly Clarkson. Clarkson says the workouts make her feel like GI Jane and I totally know what she means. Even the likes of hotties Brad Pitt and Jonathan Statham are getting in on the action to get their bodies ready for film roles. I guess I’m in good company.
Which of our favourite celebs are giving birth in 2013? Here’s our pick of expectant stars soon to be mums and dads…
Kate Middleton
Which of our favourite celebs are giving birth in 2013? Here’s our pick of expectant stars soon to be mums and dads…
Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, will welcome their first child – and the world’s most eagerly anticipated baby – in July this year.
Jessica Simpson
2013 is set to be big for Jessica Simpson and family, with reports that she is planning to marry fiancé Eric Johnson soon after having her second baby.
Kim Kardashian
Kim Kardashian, who is expecting her first child with singer Kanye West this year, was reportedly shocked when she first discovered she was pregnant. “I think until I really start seeing, like, a belly, it won’t really sink in,” she told Kathie Lee Gifford on the US Today show last month.
Evan Rachel Wood
Actors Evan Rachel Wood and Jamie Bell got married in secret in November 2012, and have this month announced they’re expecting a baby together. This couple certainly like life in the fast lane!
Kristin Bell
Hollywood beauty Kristin Bell is due to give birth this spring. “I’m feeling great,” the 32-year-old told Us Weekly last week.
Holly Madison
American model and TV presenter Holly Madison announced in August 2012 that she and Pasquale Rotella are expecting their first child together this March.
Eva Herzigova
“Hello Boys” supermodel, Eva Herzigova, is set to welcome her third child with husband Gregorio Marsiaj this spring. The new addition will join brothers Philipe, 21 months, and George, five.
Busy Philipps
Cougar Town actress Busy Philipps and her husband Marc Silverstein are already parents to 4-year-old daughter Birdie, but announced in December that they have a second one on the way.
channing
Magic Mike actor Channing Tatum and his wife Jenna Dewan-Tatum announced in December they are expecting their first child together. “What a year!” Channing recently tweeted to fans.
Prince Harry's nude photo scandal has generated millions of dollars worth of publicity for the city of Las Vegas
Prince Harry has broken his silence on his naked Las Vegas photo scandal, conceding the incident was a “classic case” of “too much army, not enough prince”.
The 28-year-old royal admitted he let his family down when he allowed himself to be photographed partying naked in Sin City last August, but insisted that what he does in private is his business.
“At the end of the day I probably let myself down [in Vegas], I let my family down, I let other people down,” Harry said.
“But I was in a private area and there should be a certain amount of privacy that one should expect. Back at home all my close friends rallied around me and were great.
“It was probably a classic case of me being too much army and not enough prince. It’s a simple case of that.”
Harry said his father Prince Charles is continually berating him about his behaviour, but he finds it hard to remember that he’s a royal a lot of the time.
“My father’s always trying to remind me about who I am and stuff like that,” he said. “But it’s very easy to forget about who I am when I am in the Army.
“Everyone’s wearing the same uniform and doing the same kind of thing. I have always said work hard, play hard.”
Harry said the media shouldn’t have published the now-infamous images of Harry cavorting naked with a nude blonde while playing strip billiards in his Las Vegas hotel room.
While many publications — including The Weekly — refused to publish the pictures in question, countless others did, meaning they were quickly seen by millions of people around the world.
Harry said he is constantly dismayed by the media coverage of him, and complained that his right to privacy is repeatedly disregarded.
“My father always says, ‘Don’t read it, it’s rubbish’ [but] I am surprised how many people in the UK do actually read it,” he said.
“Of course, if something is written about me I want to know what is said. I don’t believe there is such a thing as a private life any more … I am not going to sit here and whinge [but] there’s the internet, there’s Twitter.
“Everyone’s phone has a camera on it now. You can’t move an inch without people judging you, that’s the way life goes.”
